Auto UI @Harman
This was an industry-sponsored research project that I worked on at Georgia Tech with a group of 3 other students. The central focus of this project was developing a thoughtful system to manage personal audio experiences in a vehicle.
Research Methods: Literature Review, Competitive Analysis, Semi-structured interview(s), Affinity Diagramming, Usability Testing, Cognitive Walkthrough
Tools: Figma, Miro, Otter.ai, Zoom
My Role: UX Researcher
Dates: August - December 2021
Group Members: Sharon Banh, Wendy Gui, Ankur Garg
The Problem
Car passengers want to enjoy their preferred media, but current automotive audio systems don’t support individual media choices. If passengers would like to listen to their own media, they have to put on headphones and isolate themselves from others in the vehicle. However, Harman has created an automotive audio technology that aims to solve this issue. This technology allows one passenger to listen to one media source while other passengers in the vehicle listen to their own media sources with minimal disruption.
With this in mind, our main problem statement for this project was:
How can we design a thoughtful user interface to manage personal audio experiences in a vehicle?
Project Timeline
The Solution
Understanding the Problem
Literature Review
Our client initially provided us with several factors to consider for our background research in this topic area:
What are the different use cases of this technology?
What types of functionality does — or should — this technology support?
What are users’ expectations of this technology?
We explored these factors through an expedited literature review of topics related to auto UI, human-car interfaces, sound zones, and domestic soundscapes.
Key Takeaways
People desire different experiences with personalized audio in the home (social vs. private; separated vs. connected)
Certain information in the vehicle (e.g. navigation) may be important to the driver as well as the passengers
Audio controls only available to the driver create distractions and pose a safety risk
Gesture and voice control are becoming more common in-vehicle infotainment systems
Soundscapes and sound zones contain spatial characteristics that are difficult for users to visualize
Target Users
Based on our initial research and client feedback, we chose families who travel together as our target users. The audio technology we were designing for was developed around a car shared by four people — a driver, a front seat passenger, and two rear seat passengers. We identified a family as a common occurrence of this, with parents in the front seats and children in the back seats.
Further, the complexities of family travel, such as (1) changeable social dynamics and (2) different media preferences, suggest that there are instances where personalized media control could be of value.
We identified the following as characteristics of traveling families (particularly parents):
User Goals
We explored additional online resources to understand the following:
How do families travel together?
What are the different ways people use vehicle infotainment systems?
What are people’s pain points and preferences regarding these systems?
What safety concerns exist for vehicle infotainment systems?
Harmony
For families traveling by car, maintaining a harmonious environment is important to each passenger's mental and emotional well-being.
Autonomy
Issues of freedom and control are often sources of stress and conflict in families. In general, children of all ages like independence.
Safety
Whether it be noise pollution, questions, arguments, or demands, distractions while driving pose a significant safety risk to everyone in the vehicle.
Privacy
It is common practice for people to use media to escape. In the enclosed environment of a vehicle, it is important that members have the option to consume their media without disruption.
Competitive Analysis
Audio Experiences
We investigated other consumer systems providing personalized and/or shared audio experiences to gain insight into their features and functionality.
Vehicle Infotainment
We also investigated infotainment systems from several different automobile manufacturers to explore the current designs and implementations of media interfaces in vehicles.
Design Implications
We translated our most important insights into design implications for our future solution.
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Our system should support different degrees of control because parents may not want children to have access to certain controls.
Our system should allow users —particularly the driver — to interact with our system hands-free.
Our system should facilitate a sharing and interactive space that will enable passengers and drivers to interact with one another.
Our system should offer individual control to each passenger to provide autonomy.
Our system should offer the ability to control rear seats from the front seats.
Requirements Gathering & Design Brainstorming
Impact — Based on the most salient characteristics of the problem space and our target users, we developed a series of design implications for personalized audio UI for automobiles. Further, we generated actionable insights on current practices and preferences for in-car media control through attitudinal research with our target users — this introduced new considerations and user needs that had not previously been considered in this problem space
Semi-Structured Interviews
Objectives
We chose interviews as our primary research method in order to gain a deeper understanding of the context of a family car trip through the recollection of memories and stories.
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Learn about the mediums of technology that would best support our users in a car
Learn about the user preference for controlling media in a car
Understand how people experience private or shared media in the car and outside the car
Understand the risks that users perceive interacting with media
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Learn about the atmosphere and interactions that occur between family members in a car
Reveal how people currently consume and interact with media
Learn about how families deal with conflicts in a car — particularly in regards to media choice
Understand what constitutes a distraction in a car
Method Details
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All 3 Interviews were conducted virtually via Zoom with an interviewer and notetaker present. During the interview, participants were asked questions about their experiences traveling with their children and using media in the car. Some example questions included:
Tell me about your media interests and your children’s media interests.
Can you recall a time when the media environment was a source of conflict in the car?
Have you experienced any frustration interacting with media controls in the car? If so, what was the source of these frustrations?
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We interviewed 4 parents in total — each of which had two children:
Mother and Father (16-year-old daughter, 2-year-old son)
Mother (8-year-old twin boys)
Mother (11-year-old daughter, 5-year-old daughter)
Key Findings
After all interviews were completed, we held an interpretation session and constructed an affinity diagram to consolidate and organize our data across multiple users and uncover important insights.
Users enjoy the tactile feedback that physical buttons provide
“I like using buttons because I can feel the ‘click’ and know that I’m performing the right action”
The car is viewed as a place of social bonding and communication
“We get so distracted during our daily lives that car time is good for conversation”
Current methods of media use and control make driving less safe for the driver and other passengers
“My kids will fight about AC control or media choice and I will get distracted”
Parents want to have some control over their children's media consumption
“I’m comfortable with my children using media in the vehicle if there is some kind of parental control”
Other passengers control media if it is necessary and available
“When I am the passenger, I usually control the audio and play the music”
“The radio controls are on the center console, so my daughters can’t use them”
Hierarchical Task Analysis
Based on the main findings from our interviews, we created two hierarchical task analyses. This first task analysis represents how our target users currently use and control media in the car. The second task analysis represents how our target users might interact with a system supporting shared and personalized audio.
Design Requirements
As a result of our requirements-gathering activities, we defined functional and non-functional design requirements to advise our future design decisions:
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Our design should allow each passenger to control their personal audio zone
Our design should allow a passenger to share media with other passengers
Our design should allow authorized passengers to manage other zones
Our design should allow passengers to provide their own media source
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Our eventual design should facilitate family bonding and well-being
Our eventual design should be easy to use for people
Our eventual design should limit in-car distractions
Our eventual design should support multiple modes of input
Our eventual design should support confidentiality of data
Ideation
After gathering and defining our requirements, we engaged in “informed brainstorming” to explore the design space for our problem and develop design alternatives. We decided to utilize the Crazy 8’s Design Sprint method for 2 rounds of brainstorming.
Round 1
For the first round of brainstorming, we each came up with 8 design ideas and presented our sketches to the group. We then voted on the top 2 ideas that weren’t our own.
Round 2
We conducted our second brainstorming session inside a vehicle to immerse ourselves further in the ideation process. Drawing inspiration from the top 2 ideas in our first session, we each came up with 4 more design ideas in 8 minutes and again voted on our top 2.
Final Two Ideas
The following 2 ideas got the most votes at the end of our second brainstorming session.
Arms Reach
Combination of physical and touchscreen controls
Physical controls on the armrest, a touchscreen on the headrest (rear passengers)
Touchscreen on center console w/ additional physical controls (for driver and front passenger)
Voice control for all passengers
Wao Window
A touchscreen on each passengers window to control their media
HUD on the front windshield for the driver
Combination of steering wheel controls and center console controls for drivers’ media control
Storyboards
We then created storyboards to further develop these final two ideas.
Prototype Generation
Impact — Provided our client with novel design ideas, solutions, and recommendations to inform the future design of this technology
Revised Requirements
Based on feedback from our client and peers in the MS-HCI program, we revised our original design requirements to fit our project's scope better, the resources available to us, and the nature of our final two design concepts.
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The design should allow each passenger to control their personal audio zone
The design should allow a passenger to share their media with other passengers
(Added) The design should allow passengers to request media from other passengers.
The design should allow authorized passengers to manage (and monitor) other zones
(Removed) The design should allow passengers to provide their own media source
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Our design should facilitate (a harmonious in-car environment)
Our design should be (intuitive to use)
Our design should limit in-car distractions
(Removed) Our design should support multiple modes of input
Our design should (support passengers personal privacy)
Final Design
The first step in the development of our final prototype was to consider the pros and cons of our final two design concepts. Both satisfied our design requirements that were informed by user research, so our final design decisions were primarily based on the following considerations:
Design Decisions
Low-fidelity (Paper) Prototype
With the above considerations in mind, we combined elements from our final two design concepts and created an initial paper prototype of the steering wheel and interface for the driver. We presented this to our client in order to receive feedback on our system before developing a high-fidelity prototype.
High-fidelity Prototype
After receiving constructive feedback from our client, we transitioned from our low-fidelity paper prototype to a high-fidelity digital prototype for the driver and passenger.
Passenger Interface
Driver Interface
Features
We ensured that each one of our final features adequately met the revised design requirements we established from our user research.
Voice Control (Non-functional Requirement #5)
Media Share (Functional Requirement #2)
Media Request (Functional Requirement #3)
Audio Monitoring (Functional Requirement #4)
Volume Limit (Functional Requirement #4; Non-functional Requirements 1, 2, 3)
Disconnect (Functional Requirement #1)
Do Not Disturb (Functional Requirement #1)
Admin Control(s) (Functional Requirement #4)
Discount Evaluation
Impact — Gathered immediate feedback from experts on how to improve the implementation and usability of future iterations of our system
Evaluation Plan
Due to the time constraints of this project, we conducted a discount evaluation of our prototype with other students in the MS-HCI program. We developed a plan to support three evaluation goals.
Examine how well our prototype meets our design requirements.
Assess user reaction when interacting with our system.
Find out which features are most useful to the driver? the passenger?
As part of this evaluation, we decided to evaluate our system for two of our non-functional design requirements that we believed to be most important:
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Our users expressed that they feel the car is a space to reconnect with their family. However, conflicts in the car can result from passenger media interests. Thus, we want to test this design requirement for us to understand if our design facilitates our users' social and personal needs.
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We want to ensure that our users can easily use the system. Since this technology is new and novel, we want to test our systems learnability, efficiency and accuracy. Being that this technology would be a drastic change to the currently existing car audio systems, it is important that our system is intuitive.
Method Details
To provide a comprehensive evaluation of our system while still working within our time constraints, we elected to perform a cognitive walkthrough and usability test for the passenger and driver interface of our prototype.
Objectives
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Allow us to identify usability issues within our system quickly (CW)
Help us understand how a new user would think and interact with the interface (CW)
Whether or not it supports our users current mental models (CW)
Asses the intuitiveness of our system (CW)
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Understand how intuitive our user interface is (UT)
Whether or not our end users have the opportunity to understand and recover from errors (UT)
Employing a “think-aloud” protocol allows us to better understand our users' real-time thoughts and feelings while interacting with our system (UT)
Asses the intuitiveness and harmoniousness of our system (UT)
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Both methods were conducted in person, with 2 participants each (1 driver and 1 passenger)
Prototype for the passenger was displayed on a mobile phone and placed on the armrest of a chair
Participants interacted with our prototype from the mobile phone while on the armrest
Prototype for the driver was displayed on a laptop
Participants performed actions on a physical prototype of our steering wheel, respective actions were mirrored on the laptop
We developed 7 representative tasks for our evaluators to complete with our system for both methods.
View and monitor another passenger’s media.
Request media from that passenger.
Share media with a passenger.
Disconnect from a shared media source.
Disable the share-request feature for a passenger.
Adjust the volume limit of a passenger.
Assign admin controls to a passenger (driver only).
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Our evaluators posed as target users and were presented with stepwise actions to complete the above tasks. After the completion of each action, we presented them with four questions. We asked our evaluators to answer these questions with a yes or no. If they answered no, they were asked to provide a brief explanation. We used these questions to evaluate the overall intuitiveness of our system.
Our evaluators were presented with task scenarios for the above tasks. During the completion of these tasks, we employed a think-aloud protocol.We recorded the following performance metrics to assess the intuitiveness of our system.
Task completion time
Errors
We asked the following questions after the completion of each task to assess how well our system supports a harmonious environment.
What are your feelings while you perform this task?
How do you think this feature affects social harmony in the car
*Frustrating (1) — (5) *Harmonious (Participants were given representative photos as visual aids)
At the end of the usability test, our evaluators completed the System Usability Scale (SUS) to asses the overall usability/intuitiveness of our system and answered the following open-ended questions to assess our user’s reactions and preferences while interacting with our system:
What did you find most difficult or confusing when performing the above tasks?
Which feature would you like to use most and why?
Which feature would you not be likely to use and why?
What features will make this application more valuable to you? Why?
Findings
We put the raw data from our cognitive walkthrough and usability test into tables organized by each task/action and debriefed as a team to extrapolate the key findings from each evaluation method and metric(s) we calculated. We then noted down these findings and identified potential areas of improvement.
Insights
Based on the qualitative data analysis from our discount evaluation, we came up with key findings related to each of our evaluation goals.
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Responses from our SUS scores averaged 71.25, suggesting that our system had above-average usability.
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Responses regarding subjective feelings of harmony received an average of 4.5, suggesting that users found the features of our system (would) contribute to a harmonious in-car experience
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Participants responses to our open-ended questions expressed the following reactions:
Users have concerns about privacy and people listening and monitoring their media
Users want to request media from the media monitoring page and not have to go to the bubbles page to send requests
Users want to be able to have other passengers notified when they disconnect from their media
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Users find the media-sharing feature and assigning admin features to be the most useful and valuable in the context of a family road trip
Next Steps + Recommendations
Implement changes to our prototype based on the feedback received from the discount evaluation, and conduct a more thorough evaluation of our prototype with experts or target users
Further develop the voice control feature of our prototype and test it with expert and/or target users — possibly “Wizard of Oz” testing
Some of our key design decisions were based on the location and ergonomics of the interface in the vehicle — it would be important to evaluate our prototype in an environment that better reflects that of an automobile
Children of various ages make up a significant part of our target user group — it would be important to evaluate our system with this subset of our user population
Reflection
Working on an “atypical” interface
I found working on an interface that was not a mobile application or website very enjoyable. This presented me with unique research and design considerations that expanded my perspectives on what it is like to develop an effective user experience.
Avoiding assumptions and making evidence-based decisions
Further, working on this project reinforced the importance of making evidence-based decisions and designing for the user rather than working off my assumptions. There were times when I found myself so caught up in designing a new and novel technology that I didn’t always consider the data I had gathered from my user research. Our target users brought up certain considerations that were completely unexpected but became some of the core foundations of our final design decisions. Had we informed our system's design based on our assumptions, we would not have developed a product that fully supports our users in the way we intended it to.
Balancing industry and academic objectives
Lastly, working with an industry partner gave me great experience balancing industry and academic objectives. Due to time and research constraints, there were moments when my group and our industry partner had slightly different objectives or ways of accomplishing certain tasks. During certain meetings, I had to clearly explain my group’s primary goals and how we anticipated accomplishing them, then take in our client’s feedback and discuss how to integrate that feedback into our research plan. This acted as great practice in communication and compromise that could serve me well in future projects and work in the industry.